It was the Mirror chicken’s biggest coup since getting David Cameron to admit we’re his favourite paper.

Our bird swooped in for a chat with Tory Ken Clarke yesterday – and scrambled his brains.

The shadow business secretary was pecking away at a snack in a café near London’s Lambeth Bridge when our chicken spotted him.

Mr Clarke went red as a rooster when asked to make a clean breast of how many jobs would be lost if the Tories win the ­election – and we couldn’t get a squawk out of him. When our chicken grilled him some more, the veteran Tory blustered: “It’s a crisis election. I do lots of interviews but only to serious people.”

But he was clearly cracking under our eggsellent line of questioning. And a few hours later in a live TV debate he ­astonishingly backed Labour’s decision to nationalise Northern Rock, which Mr Cameron opposed.

The Ken-pecked Mr Clarke also supported Labour’s plan for an international banking tax – another policy the Tories have shouted down.

Our chicken became the star of the campaign by ambushing Mr Cameron on the election trail last week. We don’t like to crow but we’ll soon have the Tories waving a white feather.

The chicken’s view…

It was a stroke of cluck bumping into Ken yesterday. I had just crossed the road when I spotted him scoffing his lunch. He tried to give me the bird but he was the one who ended up with egg on his face.